


"Idiots, the both of you."

by erintoknow



Series: Aria-Rough Drafts [34]
Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén, Fallen Hero: Rebirth (Video Game)
Genre: Depression, Gen, POV Male Character, POV Third Person, Panic Attack, Suicidal Thoughts, Trans Character, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-05-15 10:31:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19293916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erintoknow/pseuds/erintoknow
Summary: Herald was thrilled his childhood hero had agreed to train him, but the actual training isn't going as smoothly as he might have hoped





	"Idiots, the both of you."

Daniel is trying, but he can’t deny feeling a little starstruck right now. Sidestep in the flesh, oh, sorry, ‘Ariadne’ now. She yelled at him every time he called her by her old hero name. But who could believe it? Still alive after all. An all too-real woman, in a pair of cropped black slacks, grey shirt visible under a pale army-green shawl that obscured most of her upper body. Tired green eyes framed by an uncombed frizz of reddish-brown hair that was kept in check with bobby pins. Daniel half expected her to be smoker, if only to complete the picture, but she had taken offense when he asked. Called it a filthy habit.

It had been a crazy gamble, asking. One-on-one training with his childhood hero? But, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? Sure, the first couple sessions had been… rough, to be generous, but they were really falling into a routine now, Daniel thought. Hoped.

Those green eyes were now laser focused on him as he ran though his warm-up exercises. It was more then a little nerve-wracking actually. Like being a beetle in a glass jar. “Are you going to warm up too?” Daniel asks, hoping to break the silence.

 ~~Sidestep~~ Ariadne shakes her head and shifts her weight from one hip to the other, arms crossed under her shawl. “I’m plenty warm, thanks, wonderbread.”

Daniel smiles at that and laughs. Laughter that quickly dies at the sight of the deepening frown on Ariadne’s face. “I wasn’t joking.” She says, then smirks at the expression on Daniel’s face. “A villain isn’t going to stand there while you do your morning crunches.”

“Good thing there’s no villains up here, right?” Daniel intends it as a joke, but there’s the quickest flash of something across Ariadne’s face, and it’s gone just as quick as it came. As she shifts her footing into a combat stance, Daniel wonders if maybe he just imagined it.

“Just try to hit me already, Herald.”

He takes a moment to center himself and then Daniel rushes forward. She always sidesteps his first attack so this time he’ll fake her out and come around the other side – only whoops, Ariadne stays put and just grabs his arm, pulling him forward and kneeing him in the stomach. Daniel floats backward, stunned for a moment as he catches his breath. “Did you…” he wheezes, “did you have to hit so hard?”

Ariadne taps her chin, considering. “No.” She answers. After a moment she relents and adds, “You keep making this same mistake. I say ‘attack me’ and then you, fool that you are, attack me.”

“What?” Daniel scrunches up his face. “You’re not making any sense.”

“Hit me.” Ariadne commands. Daniel stays still this time, floating a few feet off the ground, staring down at her. The smallest of smiles passes across Ariadne’s face. “Better.” She brushes back her hair with one hand, “Don’t follow your enemy’s script, make them follow yours.” She flicks her wrist and a bobby pin goes flying straight at Daniel’s head. He ducks down to avoid it and Ariadne is at his legs, she whacks the edge of her hand at the back of his bad knee. Daniel winces at the pain and reflexively kicks back, hitting her in the face as he pulls up and out of her reach.

Daniel looks down worriedly, he didn’t hit her too hard did he? She’s sitting flat on her butt, rubbing her face. “Are you alright?” He calls down.

Ariadne rolls her eyes, exasperation in her voice. “Goddamnit Herald, you don’t ask your enemy if they’re okay!” She gets up, hands on her hips. With the shawl covering her arms she makes for something of an angry green triangle.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Herald says in complete honesty, rubbing his knee and staying safely out of reach.

Ariadne rubs her temples. “What do you _think_ happens in a fight, Herald?”

Now it’s Daniel’s turn to be frustrated. “I know what a fight is, Ariadne, and it’s not this.”

“The moment you had me on the ground, you should have followed-up and pressed your advantage. Instead you pulled back and gave me a chance to recover.” Ariadne flicks her wrist, Daniel ducks his head but no bobby pin appears. “There’s no such thing as ‘playing dirty.’ Only fights you walk away from and fights you don’t.” She pointedly turns her back to him as she walks towards the edge of the roof.

“Ariadne?” Daniel calls after her, he always gets a little nervous when she does this. Something about her and edges. She wouldn’t really… would she? He hovers down closer, staying just out of arm’s reach, just in case this is another ‘lesson.’

It hurts a little to see her like this, he thinks. It’s obvious _something_ bad happened during the Heartbreak Incident even if he can’t get a straight answer out of anyone. Trying to pry out more information about what happened is like pushing open a vise with your bare hands. Instead, he says: “I was hoping for training, Ariadne, not to beat the crap out of each other.”

“Yeah, well,” Ariadne doesn’t turn to look at him. “Fighting isn’t pretty, and if you haven’t figured that out by now, you’re hopeless. People break bones,” Daniel rubs his leg, “bleed everywhere, sometimes there’s a lot of tears and crying and you can’t always tell what’s yours. At the end of the day, there’s nothing heroic about breaking a man’s ribcage just because the alternative is him chopping you and a dozen other people to bits.” Ariadne shifts on her feet, body otherwise rigid, and Daniel tenses, ready to swoop forward. She crosses her arms, hugging herself. “People just die, and die, and die, and you pray you aren’t going to be one of them.”

Daniel raises a hand in an offer of comfort, “Hey… are you alright?”

Ariadne ignores him and sinks to her knees hugging herself under her shawl with her eyes screwed shut. Daniel watches with an increasing sense of alarm, he moves to get beside her, just in case, only to freeze mid-motion.

“Don’t. Touch. Me.” Ariadne hisses, and Daniel staggers backward, off balance. She shudders and shakes her head back and forth violently a few times. When Ariadne finally looks over and sees the mixture of concern and confusion on his face, she grimaces. “Look. Lesson’s over for today. Sorry. No refunds.” She slowly gets to her feet, movement stiff and robotic.

Daniel shakes his head, a deep unease twisting his gut. “Okay. Seriously, what just happened there? Did I say something wrong?”

Ariadne makes a brisk pace for the rooftop service door. “It’s nothing. Forget about it. In fact: forget about training altogether.” She jiggles the door, it’s locked. She kicks the bottom of it. “Mierda!”

Daniel doesn’t move after her this time, instead staying put as he calls after her, frustration pushing aside the fear worming its way through his gut. “Talk to me Ariadne. Something’s clearly wrong, you’re worrying me.”

Ariadne wheels on him, eyes wide, hands clenched. “I don’t owe you jack shit Herald! I’m only up here in the first place because of you. And now I’m– I’m trapped here.” She shakes her fists at the sky, him, the world.

Daniel raises his hands in a placating gesture. “Okay. You’re upset. I’m sorry.” He says, and means it. “I’ll just… take you back down to the street then and we’ll call it a week?”

“No!” Ariadne clutches her head. “Nobody else is touching me today!”

Daniel stays still, ever so slightly off the ground, hands still raised, ready to move if she–

Ariadne looks up at him, sees the expression on his face and sags. The fear in Daniel’s gut subsides a little. “Goddamnit,” she whispers, “I don’t need a second fucking Ortega.”

“Can we…” Daniel hesitates, “can we talk now?”

“Free country.”

“Did you…” He thinks for a moment, knows he needs to pick his words carefully. “Was that an… attack?”

Ariadne’s response is immediate. “I don’t want to talk about that.” She turns back to the roof door, examining the lock.

Daniel frowns, “But you just said–“

“You don’t need to understand. It’s none of your business Herald." She doesn’t turn to face him, her nails digging into her palms. “I’m sorry, how did you think this was going to go, exactly? What were you expecting? To have your fearless hero leap out of the tv screen? Well, surprise!” She waves her hands. “She doesn’t exist! I’m not that! I never was! We can’t all be perfect TV Stars, Herald!! And _now_ I’m a washed-up has-been that doesn’t know when to leave things well enough alone!” She kicks the door again.

Daniel grinds his teeth as he listens, “Ariadne, even if that _was_ true, that’s not why I asked for your help!”

That gets her to look back at him, eyebrow raised in unveiled skepticism.

“Well, okay, maybe it was a part of it–” he backtracks, a tinge of red creeping up his face, “but it’s not the main reason! I was serious about needing training! This new villain, Puppetmaster, or Ghost or whatever–“

“Adrestia.”

“–That. I told you. I need help if I’m not going… If I’m not going to screw up again.” He stares her down, willing her to believe him.

“You really are serious about this?” Ariadne asks, not meeting his gaze.

“Yes!” Daniel says, frustration boiling over.

“100% dedicated?”

“Yes!!”

Ariadne turns back to the door, “Welp, sucks to be you then.”

It takes Daniel a moment to respond, “Excuse me?”

“What’s your tragic backstory? Wife got murdered? Lost your parents? Come on, every hero has one.” Ariadne kicks the door again then turns back to Daniel. “No one willingly throws themselves at people who shoot lasers out of their eyes or have knives for hands who doesn’t want to die at some level.”

Daniel flinches, the barb hits a little too close to home, he tries to push it aside. “You don’t really think all this, do you?” He asks. Pleads, really.

Ariadne laughs, short and sharp as broken glass. “Maybe I do! Maybe I don’t. Who knows anymore.”

The conversation lapses into awkward silence. Ariadne, giving up on the door for now, slides down with her back against it. She tilts her head up to stare at the sky. Daniel stays put, floating awkwardly. This isn’t how he expected his morning to go today. He understood Ariadne had obviously… changed since her hero days. but after that first conversation and her agreeing to help him, he had hoped that maybe… working with her, he could help… fix things? Somehow?? That’s what heroes do, right?

Well, here she was how, looking even more tired and run down then he had ever seen her at the Ranger’s HQ. Some kind of panic attack she refused to talk about or even acknowledge. Maybe she was right, maybe it had been a mistake to ask her for help. Did he just make things worse? Had he pressured her into it, somehow? He had just wanted to maybe get to know her–

“God, you think too loud.” Ariadne rubs her temples with one hand, the other tracing some repetitive pattern into her pant leg.

Daniel’s face reddens. “I’m… sorry?”

“You should be.” She shakes her head. “I’m embarrassed for you. Fighting a telepath and you can’t even put a lid on it.”

Daniel sees the chance to change the topic and grabs it. “That’s possible?”

Ariadne shrugs, noncommittal. “Obviously.” She says in that tone of voice meant to make Daniel feel dumb for even asking. “There’s ways… techniques, work-arounds. Little walls you can put up to make it that much harder.”

“What do you do?” He drifts closer, careful not to get too close.

She doesn’t look at him at first as she talks, “It’s a little different for me since I’m the one… hearing.” Her voice picks up in enthusiasm, “but I guess it works basically the same. You want something that can occupy your uh, I don’t know the professional terms, I’m not a damn doctor, but your surface level thoughts?”

Daniel thinks about this, and then taps the side of his skull. “Like when you talk to yourself in your head?”

Ariadne nods. “You use that as a smokescreen, or chaff or whatever, and it makes everything underneath harder to read. …or other people’s thoughts harder to hear.”

Has she ever talked about this with anyone before? Daniel wonders. Well, at least she’s actually talking to him now. “Couldn’t you also use that to like… misdirect? Get them thinking you’re going to do one thing but actually be planning the opposite?” Carefully, he sits down across from her, safely out of arm’s reach.

“Yeah,” Ariadne looks at Daniel, begrudgingly impressed. “That’s a lot harder to pull off in the middle of a fight than it sounds, but yeah? I’m simplifying all of this, by… uh, a lot, by the way. But that’s what it comes down to.”

Daniel’s quiet for a moment, weighing the idea. “Maybe I’d better start with the small stuff first then. What do you usually do for a, ah… smokescreen? –wall?”

Ariadne stares him straight in the face. “…If I tell you. And you laugh. I’ll fucking murder you.”

Daniel raises his hands, “I won’t laugh.” He smiles nervously. She’s… she’s just being hyperbolic, right?

“I’m dead serious, flyboy.”

“…Me too.” He answers, willing his voice not to squeak.

“I use music.” She stares at her lap, tense.

“Wait, like–” Daniel scratches his head, biting back a smile at the image going through his head. “So, you’re just constantly singing? In your head I mean.”

Ariadne shifts her gaze back at him, eyes narrowed. “I warned you…”

“No! No! I’m not laughing, it’s cu–“ he stops himself in time. “I’m just surprised it’s that simple?”

She shakes her head. “Try it while fighting three guys with guns and keeping your focus enough to still read their movements _and_ while blocking out the crowd of panicked bystanders.”

“Okay. That does sound harder.” Daniel admits, Ariadne shrugs so he continues, “but I only need to worry about keeping a telepath out, right? So that’s not as complex, right?”

Ariadne’s response is dry. “Lucky you,” she says.

“Do you think, maybe, we can practice that next week?” He looks at her, not hiding the concern in his voice.

Ariadne huffs, the mask of disdain slamming back down.“Do you think you can pick a training area that doesn’t leave me trapped on top of a fucking building?”

Daniel scratches his head, “I… can try to get the roof access key, at least?”

“And I expect at _least_ a milkshake as compensation.”

“I can work with that.” Daniel hazards a smile, and when it’s not immediately shot down,progresses into a genuine grin.

 

———

 

“So. Ari.” Ortega eyes Ariadne from across the break room, arms behind her back. “You seem to be getting along better with Herald now?”

Ariadne crosses her arms as she leans back against the wall. “What of it?”

Ortega smiles back as she closes the door behind her. “Nothing, I’m just pleasantly shocked is all, given how you always got so upset by his fanboying over you.”

She makes a face like she just bit into a lemon. “It’s not like I’m training him for free. I’m making him pay for it.”

Ortega blinks in surprise, “Really?”

“Yeah. In milkshakes.”

Ortega takes a second, then laughs. “Oh! I thought you were serious for a moment there.”

“I’m always serious.” Ariadne retorts, stone-faced save for the slightest uptick of a smile. “Why? Are you jealous?”

“Me?” Ortega huffs in exaggerated offense, “Jealous? Of what?”

Ariadne doesn’t laugh, and to Ortega’s relief doesn’t go with the obvious follow-up. “It doesn’t bother you that you got replaced as the face of the team with the blond-haired, blue-eyed whitebread boy wonder?”

“Ari! Don’t be mean! Herald’s a good kid” Ortega laughs, then after a moment sighs. “People will think whatever they want. I didn’t want to do it anymore anyway, after… you know. Let Herald take the spotlight.” She sidles up next to Ariadne, entirely too close. “That leaves me free to… take other things instead.”

Ariadne’s ears burn red as she hunches her shoulders, trying to hide her face in her shawl. “Julia…”

Ortega considers teasing her more but decides to cut to the chase instead. “Anyway, Herald asked me to pass this on?” Ortega says it innocently enough as she holds out the bag she’d been hiding behind her back.“I think he was a little too embarrassed to just hand it over himself.”

Ariadne looks at the bag, frowning, brows furrowed. “Huh? That’s weird.” She delicately takes the bag from Ortega, as if it could explode at any moment.

Ortega looks at her expectantly. “Well? I want to see what’s inside.”

That gets a withering look from Ariadne. “Like you don’t already have your hands all over this.”

“I had nothing to do with it. Scouts honor.”

“I–“ Ariadne frowns, “ _were_ you in Scouts?”

“Oh, just open the bag Ari!”

“Alright, alright, fine, geez.” Ariadne sighs, and sticks a hand inside the bag, pointedly not looking inside. Her hand feels out the shape of a box, and she pulls it out.

“Well?” Ortega prompts her.

Ariadne studies the image on box in quiet confusion, “It’s… a walkman tape player…? With headphones?”

“He said it was to help you concentrate? I couldn’t get him to explain what that that meant though.” Ortega searches her expression for any clues.

“Oh.” Ariadne says, her voice small. “Huh.”

“There should be a couple of tapes in the bag too. So, full honesty, I did gave Herald some genre suggestions. I _had_ wanted to be more hands on, but…” Ortega makes a face, “I’m banned from every electronic store in the state by now.”

Ariadne keeps staring at the box. “This is… very… thoughtful…?” She chokes out the words like it’s a foreign concept. Carefully she puts the box back in the bag, her voice wavering. “I– I can’t take this.”

“I told you Ari,” Ortega wraps an arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer. Ariadne freezes for a moment, then relaxes, leaning back against her. “People care about you. It’s okay to let them.”

She frowns at that, “Idiots, the both of you.”


End file.
